Thursday, November 29, 2007

"If you travel to Germany, it's still absolutely Germany. If you travel to Sweden, it still has a Swedish identity... but travel to England and you have no idea where you are."

So says the daffodil-flapping modern irrelevance Morrissey, complaining about the number of foreigners in the country.

I've never had any difficulty working out where I am when I travel to England, largely due to the large, near-unavoidable road signs marked "Welcome To England" that dot the border. Additionally, there are key giveaways like regional accents, fried breakfasts and the stampedes of football fans desperately trying to avoid watching the national team.

I reckon I know what's going on, though - whenever Morrissey comes back for a visit, all the locals spot him coming and urgently whisper Bollocks, it's that pretentious twat out of The Smiths. Quick, pretend you're from Warsaw, and maybe he'll go away.Imagine Morrissey's chagrin when he finds his old haunts are filled with pasty white Punjabis - no wonder he spends most of his time prancing about in Italy like some kind of great, droning tit-end.

Still, he gets brownie-points for suing the arse off smug, bumwipe music magazine NME, an act of charity which is long overdue.

Merely one of many to mount his hobby horse and charge off after swarthy windmills, Boris Johnson today orders British Muslims to condemn the medieval fucks of Sudan for jailing a woman for naming a teddy bear Mohammed.

Thinking on it, I decided the pudge-faced, dithering Tory cretin had a point, and walked down to my local post office.

"Alright, Asif," I said to the guy who owns the place, "Can I take it you'll be condemning Islamist Sharia excesses in Sudan?"

He gave a confused chuckle, but I wasn't for being put off so easily. "See, that's the problem with you Muslims," I said, quite reasonably. "When some dipshit religious whackjobs splatter their pants over some piffling offence, you all think it's none of your business. Well, I'm here to tell you that it is... now, what are you going to do about it?"

Exasperated, I pressed on, pointing out that Islamist intolerance is responsible for murder, mayhem and horror worldwide. It was at that point that he told me to fuck off.

Honestly, I don't know. You try to make the world a better place by commanding strangers to apologise for the behaviour of people they've never met, and they act like it's you that's committed some kind of faux pas.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

I've shown restraint in refusing to comment on the case of the McCanns, whose child disappeared mysteriously in Portugal.

The case has been heart-wrenching, even for childless curmudgeons such as myself. I've refused to join in the sordid orgy of speculation that erupted over the summer, believing that the McCanns deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

I dreamt I was in an ice cream parlour, and I'd just bought an enormous strawberry sundae. A huge, beautiful bowl of ice cream and fruit, smoking cold... delicious. I couldn't wait to get back to my table to eat it.

Just as I was walking back to sit down, this hulking great Italian bloke ran right at me, threw himself at me and knocked me flying - the two of us hit the deck, and my sundae splattered all over the floor.

So the two of us were lying there covered in strawberry sauce, when the owner came running over, and suddenly the Italian guy's on his feet, babbling, praying and making those daft finger-and-thumb gestures. The owner takes one look at this, and he's all like Hey, why are you knocking over my customers, you Scottish tosser? You must apologise to this nice Italian gentleman, and buy him the most expensive item on the menu.

The next thing I know, he's forced me to buy two more strawberry sundaes, one for me and one for the Italian guy.

I was feeling pretty hard done by at this point, but then it all turned really weird... the Italian bloke tucked into his ice cream looking all smug and pleased with himself, and when I looked down I realised that I'd actually bought myself a shit sundae, and I'm going to have to chow down on it while the Italian stuffed himself with strawberries.

I'm at a loss to explain what this could mean... It certainly can't relate to yesterday's football match.

If it had been about the football, the Italian guy would've spent the last fifteen minutes of my dream standing in the corner, throwing himself to the floor and rolling about whenever anybody walked past.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

I've certainly been known to make use of strained football metaphors before, but I've had a few days off work this week in which I've watched a few games, listened to a few radio phone-ins and read a few newspapers. In that time, I've come to realise just how much the British media's sport coverage resembles its current affairs output.

British readers will be familiar with the fads, manias and prejudices of the modern tabloid press, and may have noticed this long before - I was a bit taken aback.

Open the football pages of a random paper on any given day, and you'll likely find some variation on these themes...

The game's governing bodies - the FA in England and SFA in Scotland - well, they're hopelessly incompetent no-hopers whose greatest talent is awarding themselves pay rises.As for the game itself, did you see England v Israel the other week? 3-0, what a performance. World beaters, I tell you, a purring engine of pure footballing skill - that team fear no-one, and they'll win the European Championships at a canter. The manager has finally come good, and I always knew he was the man for the job.What's that? They lost in Moscow? Well, I always said they were a mincing gang of overpaid woofters who care more about their fancy cars than they do about rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck in. That manager needs shooting, he's a national embarrassment. The Premiership? Don't talk to me about the Premiership - it's filled with work-shy foreign imports, who think they're entitled to come over here and pick up fat wage-packets for doing nothing. And the prices they charge you to get into games! Why, it's just a rip-off - go abroad and you'll get into a game there for a fiver.And don't get me started on the foreigners - that UEFA and FIFA, they're nothing but a bunch of crooks, and our lads never get a fair chance against their biased refereeing. Why, just look at the play-acting and diving other countries get up to, they're nothing but a bunch of cheating bastards trying to con the referee- -Ref! Penalty, ref! Yeah, okay, so there wasn't much contact and Michael Owen made a bit much of it, but that's the modern game isn't it? The referee's there to be played too.But as I was saying, why is it only Britain that plays by the rules while everybody else cheats and do as they please?Yes, the game was much better when I was a lad - they played for the shirt in them days, and it was two-bob to get in. Not like today, where it's all prawn sandwiches and over-privileged mercenaries on the make.

All in good fun, of course, but isn't it odd that our coverage of sport and politics are so similar?

Why, it's almost as if the newspapers have perfected a formula for keeping us all pissed off and resentful, yet ever-eager to fork over cash for more of the same.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Say what you like about the French - they certainly know how to treat royalty.

Lots of people have attacked the government for giving the Saudis the full Buckingham Palace treatment, pointing out the illegitimacy of their rule, their human rights violations and their frankly whiffy relationship with Al Qaeda.

It seems to me that we're missing the real parakeet in the pantry - the most embarrassing thing about this is the fact we have a Queen for Abdullah to meet in the first place.

Forget the tantrums about the evil Saudi regime - they're ruthless Middle Eastern oligarchs, and they're supposed to be evil. It's in the job description.

We, on the other hand, are theoretically a modern liberal democracy whose figurehead is a crinkly old bat who happens to be descended from German princelings. Such rights as we possess are not inherent to our status as citizens, but are privileges graciously granted by the Monarch.

Now, I'm not daft - I know that the Queen possesses almost no practical power. My problem is that I once spent my days studying the lives of Thomas Paine, Cromwell and Danton, and it left me with the definite impression that they might have had a point.

Still, we Britons are too sentimental to send our feudal overlords to their richly merited appointment with Madame Guillotine, so another solution must be sought.

The monarchists always tell us that the Royal family bring in millions in tourist revenue - I say, why not expand the franchise?

If I was suddenly crowned as the King of Scotland and Mrs. Rodent made Queen, think of the torrent of Yankee dollars that would flow into the public purse! The Americans couldn't give a damn whether we were born of regal stock or delivered in a ditch, so long as there's plenty of looted finery to photograph.

And anyway, if you're going to arbitrarily crown a random scruff, why not the guy who came up with the idea?

Being royalty has its drawbacks in terms of privacy issues, but I'm ready to take one for the team. So long as my life of luxury brings in much-needed revenue for the people of Scotland, I'd be prepared to sacrifice myself for the good of the nation.